air on the heads of so many emerging
giants. The waving of the hands of the party who had succeeded in
gaining the rocks, encouraged a second to follow; while others, who
could not swim, were busily employed in searching for the means of
supporting themselves in the water, and floating themselves on shore.
Self, that had predominated, now lost its ground. Those who had allowed
their shipmates to perish in attempting to gain the same place of
security as themselves, without an effort in their favour, or one sigh
for their unlucky fate, now that hope was revived almost to a certainty
of deliverance, showed as much interest in the preservation of others
lying in a state of exhaustion, as they did for their own. The
remaining officers recovered their authority, which had been
disregarded, and the shattered fragment of the _Aspasia_ reassumed their
rights of discipline and obedience to the last. In a few hours, sick,
disabled, and wounded were all safely landed, and the raft which had
been constructed returned to the wreck, to bring on shore whatever might
be useful.

Our hero, who was the only officer who had been saved, with the
exception of the boatswain, had taken upon himself the command, and
occupied himself with the arrangements necessary for the shelter and
sustenance of his men. A range of barren hills, abruptly rising from
the iron-bound coast, covered with large fragments and detached pieces
of rock, without any symptom of cultivation, or any domesticated animal
in sight which might imply that human aid was not far distant, met the
eye of Seymour, as he directed it to every point, in hopes of succour
for his wounded and exhausted companions. One of the men, whom he had
sent to reconnoitre, returned in a few minutes, stating, that behind a
jutting rock, which he pointed to with his finger, not two hundred yards
distant, he had discovered a hut, or what in Ireland is termed a
shealing, and that there appeared to be a bridle road from it leading
over the mountain. To this shelter our hero determined to remove his
disabled men, and in company with the boatswain and the man who had
returned with the intelligence, set off to examine the spot. Passing
the rock, he perceived that the hut, which bore every sign, from its
smokeless chimney and air of negligence and decay, to have been some
time deserted, stood upon a piece of ground, about an acre in extent,
which had once been cultivated, but was now luxuriant with